Please activate "Edit" "Wordwrap"!



                                       SHAIBANI

                                  The Quest for Khorassan   
                                      Version 1.2                          

                             A scenario for Civilization II

                                   By Stefan Hrtel

                               Stefan.Haertel@t-online.de

                     http://www.geocities.com/intaphernes/Index.html

                      


                                      CONTENTS

                                Historical Background
                                Installation
                                Changes from Version 1.0
                                The Players
                                Rules and Victory Conditions
                                City Improvements
                                Units
                                Other
                                Credits
                                Bibliography
                                Feedback


"The whole besettled world never saw a city, that was like Herat under Sultan
Hussain Mirza... This was a wonderful age; In it, Khorassan and especially Herat
was full of incredible and educated men. Every work, whatever it was, that was
picked up by a man, he was encouraged to finish it..."
                                        -Babur, Khan of the Afghan Timurids 

I. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND


The Uzbeks, a central Asian nomad tribe of Turkish-Mongol origin, began expanding their territory under the rule of their Khan Muhammad Shaibani (ruled 1500-1510). From early on, they had to struggle against other regional "superpowers": Though able to defeat and eliminate the Timurids, who had been ruling over Persia for the last century, they soon saw themselves in the shadow of two rising powers: The Safavids in Persia and the Mughals in Afghanistan. Their goal, the conquest of Khorassan, was halted by the Persian expansion. Thus, the Shaibanid Uzbeks were unable to turn themselves into a big and important power. Can you do it better?


II. INSTALLATION

I can only guarantee you that this scenario will work with
Fantastic Worlds. I cannot guarantee you that it works with MGE/UCC. It will not work with CiC or lower versions. 
Create a folder under the Scenario directory, call it "Shaibani" or whatever, and move all the unzipped files in.
Other versions of Civ2 use other file destinations. If you have the French or German version of Civ2, you must rename all the .txt files into .Fre and .Ger to play this scenario properly.

III. CHANGES FROM VERSION 1.0

Inofficially declaring this scenario as my favourite of those I have authored myself, I felt that there were a lot of things to improve. Most of the changes are only cosmetic, but some have impact on the gameplay.

* Plundering a caravan now benefits for the 'lesser civilized' tribes.
* The Persian defenses have lightened up a bit and are more spread now (i.e. no "wall" between the mainland and the plains)
* New flags for each tribe
* City styles fixed for each tribe
* Production cost for the gun-carrying and artillery units increased
* New road running from Damgan to Merv
* Scenario dates now changed into the Islamic calendar
* New currency (Persian Shahi) used
* Fixed a couple of text files


IV. THE PLAYERS

I highly recommend that you play the Shaibanid Uzbeks. The Timurids will be fun too, as they are a large but weak civilization. The 'other' Uzbeks offer a great challenge for experienced players, as they start out with the same possibilities as the Shaibanids, but without the starting bonus the Shaibanids are equipped with. These two might make an interesting multiplayer game.
The Afghans are not recommended, but they play a historical part in this scenario, and their objectives are pretty much the same as those of the Uzbeks. You should not play with the Persians, the Khanates or the Kazakhs.


V. RULES AND VICTORY CONDITIONS

The quote at the beginning of this readme describes very well the world that the Uzbeks are about to enter. For centuries now, the Central Asian country of Mavarranahr, with it's huge cities like Samarqand, Bokhara or Khokand have been the centre of the eastern Islamic civilization, and the gateway from east to west. Eastern knowledge and trade goods exchanged with western ones, making Samarqand one of the largest and most highly civilized cities of the world. Thus, if you play with the Uzbeks, you have many reasons to conquer this country.
As you might expect, this scenario runs under the objective system. There are 98 objectives, wonders count as such. The Uzbeks control 3 of them at the start. Scoring counts as follows:

                       ---> 77 Objectives is a decisive victory 
                       ---> 43 Objectives is a marginal victory
                       ---> 19 Objectives is a marginal defeat
                       --->  8 Objectives is a decisive defeat

If you are good in historical geography, let me tell you that a marginal defeat is the conquest of central Mavarranahr, a marginal victory is the conquest of all of Mavarranahr, and a decisive victory is the above plus Khorrasan, and/or the other Persian cities. 
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you might be able to enjoy this scenario to the fullest. 
There are a couple of house rules I unfortunately had to include. Sorry for these, but in order to make a historically accurate situation you must obey the following rules:

* As the Shaibanid Uzbeks, you MUST take Bokhara and you MUST keep it (at least till the death of  Ubaidullah)
* Ubaidullah MUST die (but you should keep him alive for a while)


VI. CITY IMPROVEMENTS

In this scenario, every city is very valuable. There are quite a few cities, but if you play the Uzbeks, it is not only difficult to conquer, but also to keep cities, especially at the beginning. 
It is important to plan what to do with a city. Improvements are expensive, money is short and so is time. Don't waste your time building a barrack in a city with low production. Barracks, and all good units are expensive. In smaller cities, you should build science improvements, because, unless you change your government type, science will be slow.
I won't list the city improvements here. If it isn't clear what an improvement is supposed to be, consult the civilopedia. It will hold a description on what it actually is, and what it's good for in the game.


VII. UNITS

All civilizations have some own units. The Persians and the Uzbeks have their variety of units.
There are no naval units in this scenario. You won't need them anyways.
Some unique units will appear in this scenario. They are:

1. Shah Abbas. He will appear towards the end of the scenario on the persian side. He will propably destroy a lot of your acheivements in the scenario. Thing is, that you can't prevent that or stop him, so be prepared.

2. Muhammad Shaibani will be on the Uzbek side from the beginning on. He is the strongest unit the Uzbeks have at the start, but that doesen't mean he's invincible. As a matter of fact, you will most propably lose him quite early. Don't worry, this is supposed to be so, and there will be no penalty for losing him. 

3. Ubaidullah, who will appear after the capture of a specific city by the Uzbeks (I'm not saying which one). He is stronger than Shaibani, but a lot slower and best to keep as a defense unit. When he dies, a specific wonder becomes obsolete. Again, I'm not saying which one it is.


VIII. OTHER

* Negotiations are allowed only between Afghans and Shaibanids.


IX. CREDITS

The Afghans unit was made by Harlan Thompson. All other units were either made by me (Those marked with "SH") or taken from Harlan's ancient units collection, except for the fortress icon that was taken from Bernd Schuster's "Fall of Rome" scenario.
The icon for the Medrese was taken from Michael Daumen's "Great Game" scenario. The icons for the palace, granary, parks, caravanserai, library, tim, monastery, school, city dump, mosque, blacksmith, bazaar, silk route and Rabat-i Sharaf have been taken from Harlan's icons collection. All others have been made by me. 
The Khanat and Persian cities are from Harlan's cities collection.
The map and terrain are by WarVoid.
The Timurid flag is from Jess Balsinde's "Al-Andalus" scenario. All other flags, with the exception of the Persian one, which was made by myself, come from Harlan Thompson's "Mongols" scenario.
Special thanks to Steve Dangelat and WarVoid for playtesting.


X. BIBLIOGRAPHY

-"Fischer Weltgeschichte Band 16: Zentralasien" published by Gavin Hambly, 1966/95 Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt Main
-"Islam. Kunst und Architektur", published by Markus Hattstein and Peter Delius, 2000 Knemann Verlag, Cologne.


XI. FEEDBACK

For questions, comments notes or anything else, you can write me an eMail
to Stefan.Haertel@t-online.de
You can also write something to one of Apolyton's forums, preferably the SLeague forum. Please visit also my homepage at http://www.geocities.com/intaphernes/Index.html
Here you can get the latest versions of all my other scenarios, as well as my other creations for Civ2.